‘ MAD MAX: FURY ROAD’ DE­SERVES 10 NOM­I­NA­TIONS

One of the great plea­sures and very mi­nor an­noy­ances of the Os­car sea­son has been ex­plain­ing to shocked peo­ple that the ac­tion movie with a gui­tar flamethrower de­serves the many nom­i­na­tions it re­ceived. Genre film­mak­ing is his­tor­i­cally snubbed by the elites, but Ge­orge Miller’s fourquel/semire­boot plowed into the Os­cars with the force of a one-armed Charlize Theron driv­ing her truck through that mind­bog­gle of a sand­storm. We’ve been puff­ing up its im­por­tance by point­ing out it’s an an­gry fem­i­nist tract in which women bat­tle their male op­pres­sors. But it isn’t just great genre film­mak­ing; it’s great film­mak­ing. Wit­ness it.